Middlebury College Ecological Footprint

1
Middlebury College Ecological Footprint

• Our ecological footprint represents the amount
  of biologically productive land required to
  produce our resources and sequester our wastes.
• We assembled a footprint representative of
  three significant categories of resource
  consumption and at Middlebury College heating
  oil, transportation oil, food

Chip Sherwood, Tamara Jacobi, Julia McKinnon,
Adam Lovell
2
Change in Footprint Over Time

• Years observed 1995, 2000, 2005
• Footprint per capita has increased over time
• Total footprint has increased by 6,000 hectares
  over 10 years.

3
Middleburys Current Footprint

• Middleburys Total Ecological Footprint is 17,080
  Hectares
• Sports teams and traveling students have smallest
  effects (less than .05) on footprint
• Per capita carbon footprint 7.27 hectares
• Middlebury owns 1657 hectares of woodland (the
  only useful land for carbon sequestration)
• In order to be sustainable, Middlebury needs to
  acquire 15423 hectares or reduce our per-capita
  footprint to 1.75 hectares.

4
Suggestions for Action

• Almost ¾ of our footprint results from carbon
  emissions from the burning of 6 oil. Reduction
  of building temperatures (2 degrees campaign) is
  important, as well as shutting windows and
  leaving the thermostat off.
• Oil 2 is also a large segment of our footprint,
  the same suggestions apply to reduce consumption
  of this fossil fuel.
• Gas and Diesel to fuel the college fleet is the
  next largest component of our footprint. In
  order to reduce this component we could purchase
  more biodiesel (which began in fall 2005) and
  invest in electric transportation for on-campus
  vehicles.